Lord Bach: I am pleased to be able to inform the House that regulations have been laid today confirming scope of the new gangmaster licensing arrangements. Licensing will apply to gangmasters who supply labour to all parts of the farming and food processing industries. This will protect some 600,000 workers from exploitation and will protect the interests of legitimate labour providers struggling to compete against businesses operating illegally. With the completion of this element of the regulatory framework, the Gangmasters Licensing Authority can commence licensing operations on 6 April.
	The Gangmasters Licensing (Exclusions) Regulations 2006 fix the boundaries for the new licensing scheme by specifying circumstances in which a person, who is acting as a gangmaster, does not need a licence. These include the supply of labour to retail, catering, wholesale and distribution establishments, short-term loans of workers between farmers, the supply of workers by agricultural contractors to operate machinery they provide, the supply of individual specialist farm workers. The supply of labour to process and pack non-agricultural products including an agricultural component, such as cosmetics, is also excluded. Together these provisions will provide maximum protection of workers through robust licensing arrangements, while giving farmers the flexibility they need to manage the deployment of labour on a day-to-day basis.
	The introduction of licensing in relation to shellfish gathering is dealt with separately in the regulations. The very valuable work done by the Ethical Trading Initiative Temporary Labour Working Group to develop a voluntary code of practice, has helped ensure the early introduction of licensing for labour providers operating in the farming and fresh produce supply chain. However, more time is needed to finalise the licensing arrangements to apply to shellfish gathering. This work is in hand, but it is important to ensure that the protections offered by the licensing scheme are extended to cover shellfish gathering at the earliest opportunity. For this reason the regulations make it clear that licensing will apply to the supply and use of labour to hand-gather shellfish from 1 October 2006.
	The Gangmasters (Appeals) Regulations 2006 establish an appeals procedure for gangmasters who are refused a licence or have their licence withdrawn. Appeals will be heard by an independent person appointed by the Secretary of State from the panel of employment tribunal chairmen. Defra staff will provide secretariat support for the appeals process. The regulations will ensure that appeals are dealt with justly and that the parties are placed on an equal footing.
	These regulations cover England, Scotland and Wales. Separate regulations will apply in Northern Ireland.
	The final element of the regulatory framework is the Gangmasters (Licensing Conditions) Rules 2006. These have been made by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. They set out the conditions attached to a licence and the fees to be charged. The rules must be read in conjunction with the authority's licensing standards which are also being published today. In the first year, licence fees will range from £250 for the smallest businesses to £4,000 for the largest. Where a business has, in the opinion of the authority, successfully addressed issues raised in a temporary labour working group audit, the fee for early applicants will be reduced by £250. Where a business has not been audited against the Temporary Labour Working Group code and an application inspection is necessary, an additional one-off fee ranging from £1,600 to £2,500 will be charged.
	There are a number of further steps that need to be taken over the coming months to finalise the licensing arrangements. If the application process goes smoothly, we plan to make it an offence for a gangmaster to operate without a licence with effect from 1 October 2006. At the same, time regulations will be made setting out the steps that a labour user will need to take to ensure a gangmaster he or she engages has a licence. It is anticipated that it will become an offence for a labour user to use an unlicensed gangmaster in December. We expect that the labour-provider and labour-user offences will be introduced in the shellfish gathering sector from April 2007.
	Together these regulations and rules will provide a high degree of protection for workers. They will also help protect the interests of law abiding labour providers and will help protect Exchequer interests by promoting employment of legitimate workers. These objectives have been achieved without placing unreasonable regulatory, administrative or economic burdens on the businesses involved. However, many of the businesses affected by the new licensing arrangements will be small businesses and we do need to ensure that the burdens on these businesses are proportionate to the risks involved. Defra will therefore conduct a post implementation review, a year after licensing comes into effect.
	We have come a long way since the House first considered the Gangmasters Licensing Bill in 2004. This Bill, which was introduced by the member for West Renfrewshire, enjoyed cross-party support. The Bill also had the support of a strong coalition of stakeholders including the trade unions, farmers, supermarkets, the Churches and a number of other organisations interested in the well-being and welfare of gang workers. I am pleased to say this coalition is still active and that it played an important part in the recent debate on the scope of the exclusion regulations. Coalition members have sought to ensure that the gangmaster licensing arrangements are robust, credible and effective. The regulations tabled today deliver all these objectives.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My honourable friend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality (Tony McNulty) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	On 8 November 2005, I informed the House of our decision to reverse the policy requiring the Immigration Service to seek the consent of individuals before imposing an electronic monitoring regime as part of contact management plans. I also said I would provide a further update to the House on developments in the use of electronic monitoring in an immigration context.
	Electronic monitoring takes three forms: telephone reporting using voice recognition technology, tagging and satellite tracking. A pilot during October 2004 to February 2005 focused on the practicalities of applying electronic monitoring in an immigration context. Since then, the Immigration Service has been working on how best to use electronic monitoring as part of our developing contact management strategy. Contact management, including electronic monitoring is a key aspect of the new asylum model as described in the five year plan.
	We have focused the use of telephone reporting on managing our contact with lower risk cases in conjunction with physical reporting at reporting centres. We are thereby able to:
	manage better the throughput at our reporting centres in line with the intelligent reporting strategy;
	avoid unnecessary travel by those required to report;
	maintain contact with those who live beyond a reporting centre catchment area;
	maintain contact with those who find it difficult to travel to a reporting centre, for example, those who are ill or pregnant women immediately before and after the birth of their child; and
	monitor compliance with the residence restrictions we place on people.
	The use of tagging is being focused on higher risk cases. Among the key applications for tagging are cases where we have not detained, but where we wish to maintain a high level of contact and control because the circumstances of the case suggest that the individual may not comply, for example to avoid removal. The categories which meet those criteria include:
	asylum seekers who have previously claimed in a third country;
	cases where appeal rights are exhausted or where the right of appeal is non-suspensive;
	those who make late and opportunistic claims to asylum; and
	those who are not documented or who express a reluctance to comply with the documentation process.
	We will shortly be extending the use of tagging to those who cannot continue to be detained at Oakington and Colnbrook Reception Centres and Harmondsworth Removals Centre but who are shortly to be removed. We also intend to begin tagging people at reporting centres at the point of service of their dismissed appeal determination pending removal.
	We have made less use of satellite tracking. This is partly because of the geographical limits on the availability of the technology to Greater Manchester, Hampshire and the West Midlands as part of a wider pilot sponsored by the National Offender Management Service which was only running in these areas. We will do further work to establish clearly whether this more intrusive method of contact management will deliver business benefits and provide value for money.
	During the original pilot, in line with the requirement for consent, monitoring periods were generally set in a way which did not impact on an individual's movements; for example, monitoring periods of two hours early in the day, twice a week. By imposing more frequent monitoring periods and at different times of the day, we intend to demonstrate to those who are not detained that we intend to exercise a high level of control pending their removal.
	In December 2005, the Immigration Service carried out an exercise at the asylum screening units (ASUs) in Liverpool and Croydon to tag adult asylum applicants at the point of claim. By making clear the intention to tag the applicant, our aim was to discourage unfounded applications for asylum. Eleven applicants—all of whom were liable to detention—were tagged during the week-long exercise, and the ASUs have continued to refer claimants for tagging who are not detained. A total of 60 claimants at the ASUs had been tagged by the end of February 2006. For the purpose of the exercise we sought to tag only those claimants with settled addresses in view of the cost and logistical difficulties of inducting and re-inducting those moving between different properties run by emergency accommodation providers. However, as our aim is to send a clear message to unfounded claimants, we are working towards tagging all adult claimants at our ASUs who are not detained, including those who seek asylum support.
	Tagging is not suitable in all cases where the substantive claim to asylum has yet to be considered. Cases where we would not seek to tag at the point of claim include certificated medical foundations cases and those who have been the victims of trafficking. Those cases may still be suitable for electronic monitoring, however, through telephone reporting to allow us to monitor compliance with residence requirements.
	By February 2006, 353 people had been inducted onto telephone reporting, which requires them to telephone the monitoring centre once a week, in lieu of reporting to an immigration reporting centre. The number currently reporting, (net of those who are no longer subject to telephone reporting) is 260. We have inducted 192 people onto a tagging regime, of which 154 are currently tagged. Of those no longer subject to electronic monitoring, 21 have been removed. Two left voluntarily. Five people were made subject to tracking orders, and two are currently being tracked.
	The evaluation of the original trial on EM found that the overall compliance rate in terms of tagging and tracking was 68 per cent. The compliance rate for both tagging and telephone reporting is currently around 90 per cent.
	Electronic monitoring provides the Immigration Service with a real alternative to detention while allowing them to manage the risk of non-compliance with reporting and residence restrictions according to the specific circumstances of a case. The Immigration Service will plan to apply electronic monitoring to higher numbers of cases next year as they continue to develop the initiative. I will update the House from time to time when those developments are significant.

Lord Warner: My right honourable friend the Minister of State (Jane Kennedy) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	Regulations have been laid before Parliament to increase National Health Service charges in England from 1 April 2006. There will be an increase in the prescription charge of 15p from £6.50 to £6.65 for each quantity of a drug or appliance dispensed.
	The cost of prescription prepayment certificates will rise to £34.65 for a four-month certificate and £95.30 for an annual certificate. These offer savings for those needing more than five items in four months or 14 in one year.
	Prescription charges are expected to raise around £430 million for the NHS in 2006–07. Charges for elastic stockings and tights, wigs and fabric supports supplied through the hospital service will be increased similarly.
	The prescription charge increase this year closely reflects the level of inflation. The other increases are pro-rata with the 15p increase. These increases will help maintain the contribution charges make to NHS funding.
	NHS charges in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are a matter for the devolved Administrations.
	Details of the revised NHS charges have been placed in the Library.